Temporal network
network whose links change over time
A temporal network, also known as a time-varying network, is a network whose links are active only at certain points in time. Each link carries information on when it is active, along with other possible characteristics such as a weight. Time-varying networks are of particular relevance to spreading processes, like the spread of information and disease, since each link is a contact opportunity and the time ordering of contacts is included.
Examples include communication networks with short-lived links, such as phone calls or emails. Information and some computer viruses spread over such networks. Networks of physical proximity, encoding who encounters whom and when, can be represented as time-varying networks. Some diseases, such as airborne pathogens, spread through physical proximity. Real-world data on time resolved physical proximity networks has been used to improve epidemic modeling. Neural networks and brain networks can be represented as time-varying networks since the activation of neurons are time-correlated.
Time-varying networks are characterized by intermittent activation at the scale of individual links.
“Temporal network” enters the record as network whose links change over time. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Temporal, network and whose can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Temporal network” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.